


Value

by FroldGapp



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-14 14:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14771429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroldGapp/pseuds/FroldGapp
Summary: ‘You shouldn’t have to know someone to want to save their life!’





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> shout at me (but don't) froldgapp.tumblr.com
> 
> based on * that * trailer ahead of season 6

Keith was upright when he woke and cold to the marrow. The healing pod. An experimental wiggling of his toes and fingers told him they were all accounted for, but they they ached with the phantom pain of expedited healing. Beyond the thick bluish glass of the healing pod, his teammates – former teammates – were arranged like curious birds. Shiro stepped forward and placed his left hand to the glass. He smiled, the gentle creasing of his brow saying,  _ you’re safe. _

The gluey fluid drained from around Keith, the chill in its wake raising hairs all along his arms and legs. Just as his feet settled on the pod floor, the door hissed open. He made to move, but his knees locked. He almost spilled over with the momentum, but caught himself against the glass. In the headlights of his former team, he couldn’t move. In fact, he could barely think. They wore masks in colours of doubt. Once again, they did not know how to handle him: the liminal ally, the sometime friend. 

The whys and hows of his presence at the castle eluded him. When he closed his eyes and tried to journey back in his mind, there was only endless space and a sickening whirl of stars.

‘Hey, buddy,’ said Lance. He looked as though he were about to continue, but snapped his mouth shut and offered a helpless shrug instead.

The others hung back: Pidge and Hunk clumped together, mumbling uncertain  _ hellos. _  Coran and Allura stood close by. The princess was wringing her hands, elegant fingers turning over while her clear eyes considered Keith. Coran pulled on his moustache; wore a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Shaking out his arms with a sharp grunt, Shiro stepped up to the pod and guided Keith from it by the shoulder. ‘Let’s get you something to eat.’ When Keith stumbled on legs made of smoke, he offered a quiet: ‘Easy, easy.’ He slung an arm around Keith’s back, and with his left hand, pulled him into a clumsy embrace. They tottered forward, Keith just about managing a cotton-mouthed, ‘Thanks.’

As they reached the door in a silent, awkward procession (none of the crushing hugs and chummy tears of his leave-taking), Allura cleared her throat and placed two fingers against Keith’s elbow. The slow march stopped.

‘I’m sorry, Keith.’ Her fine brows drew together as she gathered the words she needed. ‘That you lost another comrade. I’m sure they were very… valuable.’

The room tilted on its axis. ‘Another comrade?’ Keith asked, breathless. Shiro’s fingers tightened around his shivering bicep. ‘What other comrade?’ 

But he already knew.

His mother, screaming his name as he was flung backwards into the yawning hollow in the asteroid. Her silhouette against the burning disc of a dying star. How tall she looked. How strong and ready to tear down the empire with her own two hands. How his stomach bottomed-out, right before all thought was knocked free of him.

‘No,’ he breathed, but barely. His lungs were already shrinking to dried leaves. His chest rattled. ‘No.’ He turned one way and the other, a dreadful keening building in the back of his throat. His chin grew fat with building grief and his throat felt ready to rupture. He burped deep in his chest, an effort to calm the sudden bile.

Adjusting his grip, Shiro stepped around until he was face to face with Keith. ‘Hey, hey…’ He brought a thumb up to Keith’s cheek. The first tear rolled free. He palmed wiped it away, but Keith jerked his head back like a spooked horse, eyes wild. Shiro shushed and whispered, ‘You have to breathe. Keith. Breathe.’

Keith stilled momentarily. But his eyes lit, in the next second as he demanded, ‘Who brought me here?’He twisted away again, struggling to free himself from Shiro’s iron grasp. ‘Who brought me here?!’

Allura shared an uncertain look with Coran, then Lance. ‘The red lion,’ she said. ‘She found you. We couldn’t sto– She brought you to us. She saved you.’

Keith howled and sank to his knees, Shiro followed, catching the frightened eyes of his team all about him. ‘No!’ Keith cried, forehead pressed to the floor. ‘No, no, no.’

‘Keith,’ said Coran, dropping to a crouch beside the former red paladin. ‘Who was that? Who was that blade, son?’

Bent over himself, back heaving and hair matted to cheeks damp with upset, it seemed Keith was too far gone to answer. But, with a shuddering breath, he managed – barely – to say the words: ‘My mom.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @blackcatbone who is an amazing sparring partner and suggested quintessence save for all you weirdos* who didn't want me to kill off Krolia!
> 
> Get at me: froldgapp.tumblr.com, especially if you see typos as, once again, no beta and written while I should be in bed.
> 
> *lovely people

The days that followed were a swamp. Having been guided from the healing pods to a strange, new room by Shiro, Keith remained there, wrapped in blankets, drowning in hurt. Occasionally, Shiro would come and sit on the edge of his bed, pushing thick fingers through his hair and talking quietly of Voltron’s comings and goings. He left trays of food on the bedside table, of which only the leaden bread would be missing the following morning. Once, Allura visited him, but said only “sorry” and left again with a quiet cough.

The red lion prodded that first night, and when he answered with a shuttering of his mind, she let him be. But the next night, she returned; rueful, eager. Guilty. ‘Get out!’ he’d screamed, startling even himself. She'd backed off, but didn’t leave. Just padded around in the shadows of his mind.

When Keith closed his eyes, he dreamed of Krolia – their brief weeks together. He tried to pick over every detail of their conversations, every slope and angle of the woman who was his mother. In her, he found answers; both to questions he’d been asking all his life, and questions he never knew enough to ask. _How did you end up on Earth? Do you ever get these weird feelings like something is talking to you, right inside your brain? Why did you leave? What was dad like? What was I _like?_ Were we happy? Were _ you _happy? Are you happy now? Do you know how to be happy? Sometimes I don’t know if I do._

Hers was the type of patience you could tell she worked hard to maintain. But she was mostly kind, and more: she was curious. As many questions as he fired at her, she returned each volley, and oh, how his chest ached to see her face as he spoke of his childhood. He tried to hide details: the scabies, and brief panicky flashes in the broom closet at school where he couldn’t breathe. Vomiting down the sleeve of his coat and walking with his hand raised so nobody would discover it. He tried and failed. She wrung each detail out of him with sharp, probing questions and dynamite eyes.

Eyes, which, for all the world, he couldn’t remember the colour of.

Something lit inside him. He roared, throwing off the blankets, and stormed from his room, legs quaking from underuse and an empty stomach. When he reached the red lion’s hangar, she was already roused; sitting like a house cat, eyes glowing gold. Gears whirred as she lowered her maw to greet him. On his approach, he grabbed a long metal pipe from a workbench; enjoyed its weight in his right hand. He tossed it to his left and brought the full weight down on her gleaming nose. The bones in his arm thrummed with the impact. He brought it down again so hard he almost lost the pipe with the bounce. Distraught animal howls ricocheted in his skull.

‘Why did you leave her?!’ he screamed. ‘Why didn’t you take her too?!’ He switched hands and continued his assault.

Voices sounded from the door, together with thundering feet. Someone made a grab for pipe, but Keith ducked free, driving the pipe into the space between the black nose and shining white muzzle, and levering it until the metal screeched.

Strong arms grabbed him from behind and swung him up and away from Red. The pipe clattered to the floor. He thrashed and kicked, screamed and clawed, and was eventually – by accident or intent – thrown to the ground.

‘Keith!’ barked Shiro, standing between him and the dumb weight of the red lion. ‘You can’t– What did you plan to do?’

Panting, Keith wiped at his mouth, eyeing up the distressed faces of the others. Among them, only Lance looked like he had the kind of spirit Keith needed; a little flare of self-righteousness Keith wanted to beat into the ground. He curled his tongue and spat past the team's slack faces. It hit Red’s face like a bullet.

‘Hey!’ shouted Lance, moving to Shiro’s side. ‘Watch it!’

Keith climbed to his feet, issuing a cautioning hiss when Shiro offered his hand.

‘This machine is a piece of shit.’ Silence greeted Keith, but Allura’s face spoke loud and clear: immediate indignation. Her fist clenched at her side. ‘Voltron,’ he panted, ‘is a piece of shit.’

‘Don’t speak like that in here,’ whispered Allura, but her words were a gale.

Shiro raised entreating hands. ‘Keith, let’s get you back to bed. You’re not thinking straight. We know you’re mad at the red lion–’ Lance’s eyes narrowed, but Shiro stilled him with a gentle hand. ‘But you’re not going to achieve anything by going at her with some pipe.’

‘You shouldn’t be going at her at all!’ yelled Lance. ‘Red saved your life!’ Ignoring Keith’s expectant sneer, he continued. ‘You’re a paladin. You were _her_ paladin. One of us! You’re part of this team, aren’t you?’

Keith shook his head and bit his lip. His eyes had started welling again, but fuck the tears and fuck this group. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’

That drew a response. That got Hunk and Pidge and Coran melting from stricken statues into an incredulous Greek chorus of _no’s_ and _Keith’s._

He struggled to speak. His lungs were hard and burnt, filled with soot. ‘You’re... so sure you're the good guys.’ His breath shuddered in and out of him, and he couldn’t bare to look at Shiro’s waiting face. ‘You’re cold. All of you are so… _cold.’_ Keith threw a finger to the red lion. ‘She left her. She left my mom behind.’ He sobbed, his arm dropping to his side as he collapsed into tears. Red’s mournful cries shook him from his spine to his temples. He twisted his head to get away from her. But she followed, and followed, and followed.

‘Keith,’ said Allura, gentle, and ever so plain. ‘We didn’t know she was your mother.’

‘You shouldn’t have to know someone to want to save their life!’ He pushed his face into his hands, already soaked with tears. 'What's wrong with you?'

The hangar lights fizzed to red as the alarms began blaring. Coran fumbled his reader from his pocket and looked up at the group, panicked. ‘A Galra scouting ship,’ he said. ‘Massive quintessence. _Massive_ amounts. Strange quintessence, too.’

While the others crowded around Coran, happy for the distraction, Shiro approached Keith. ‘We’ll make this right,’ he said.

Keith shrugged out of Shiro’s hold. ‘You can’t. It’s too late, Shiro.’

‘They’re hailing us!’ Coran announced.

Allura pulled in a steadying breath. ‘Answer that signal.’

A staticky channel opened up, popping madly with quintessence interference. A single voice, raw as a wound, echoed across the hangar.

‘I’ve come for my son.’


End file.
